Comelec OKs Akbayan, Bayan Muna for 2013 polls

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday announced that it had allowed Akbayan and Bayan Muna partylists to run in the 2013 polls.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes made the announcement, saying that six commissioners voted 4-2.

Commissioner Grace Padaca did not vote, Brillantes said.

Brillantes also said that he was one of the commissioners who voted against the approval.

Commissioners Rene Sarmiento, Christian Lim, Elias Yusoph, and Armando Velasco voted for the approval of Akbayan and Bayan Muna while Lucenito Tagle joined Brillantes in dissenting.

When asked to explain his stand, Brillantes said that he took the case as similar to the decision to disqualify Ako-Bicol party-list.

Brillantes had earlier said that the poll body disqualified Ako-Bicol party-list because it was a duly accredited political party but it was applying to run under the party-list system without representing any particular sector.

Tagle, who also voted against the approval of Akbayan, said that he believes that the partylist group was “not marginalized and their nominees are well entrenched in government.”

“In other words they should run as congressmen, not through the partylist [to win seats in the House],” Tagle said.

Sarmiento, in a separate interview, said that he voted for the approval of Akbayan and Bayan Muna because they both have track records in representing the marginalized and underrepresented.

“You can see these from the bills and laws passed in Congress…..After a long reflection, my decision is for them to participate, provided that both of them should participate…,” Sarmiento said.

Sarmiento also cited the statement from the Supreme Court ruling Ang Bagong Bayani vs. Comelec in favoring the groups.

The high court ruling said the party-list system “invites those marginalized and underrepresented in the past—the farm hands, the fisher folk, the urban poor, even those in the underground movement—to come out and participate, as indeed many of them came out and participated during the last elections.”

“Let them participate in mainstream politics and this is now the opportunity for them,” Sarmiento said.

Padaca, in a separate interview, said that she took no part in the voting because she was not present during the deliberations for the accreditation of Akbayan and Bayan Muna.

Two disqualification complaints against Akbayan had been filed before the Comelec  by various groups arguing that it could no longer participate in the party-list elections because it was a “party in power” favored by President Benigno Aquino III.

Militant groups had said that Akbayan’s members held key positions in the Aquino administration. The complainants identified at least nine Akbayan members and personalities occupying high appointive positions in the Aquino administration.

The nine are Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Ronald Llamas and his deputy Ibarra Gutierrez III, Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Loretta Rosales, National Anti-Poverty Commission Chairman Joel Rocamora and appointed spokesperson Risa Hontiveros, GSIS Board of Trustees member Mario Agujo, Social Security System Commissioner Daniel Edralin, National Youth Commission Commissioner Percival Cendaña and Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor Commissioner Angelina Ludovice-Katoh.

The Comelec has been undergoing a re-evaluation of old and new partylist groups as part of their efforts to cleanse the partylist system, which has been criticized as being capitalized by bogus organizations or by groups whose nominees were either multimillionaires, former government officials or members of powerful political clans.

Bayan hits Comelec decision

Meanwhile, the group Bayan, one of the petitioners in the disqualification case against Akbayan, said that they were “aghast” at the poll body’s decision, saying that this may be because Akbayan “is truly Malacañang’s favorite.”

“How can the five commissioners not see that Akbayan is a party in power that has influential cabinet officials and has multi-million peso campaign donors from the country’s ruling elite? Akbayan’s nominees, two of whom are Palace appointees, also do not belong to any of the marginalized sectors that the group claims to represent,” Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said in a statement.

“Seems that the Palace worked its “magic” on the Comelec, after Malacañang’s repeated statements favoring Akbayan. Malacañang has indeed been very vocal in its endorsement of Akbayan,” he added.

Reyes noted that they would continue to expose “Aquino’s favorite party-list group,” including what he described as anomalies associated with their officials in occupying posts in the government, such as those in the National Anti-poverty Commission.

“We call on the voters to reject Aquino’s favorite non-marginalized and over-represented partylist group,” he said.